Toews: Paperwork overwhelming cops

MEMBERTOU — Police officers face “overwhelming” amounts of paperwork that curtail their time on the street, says the federal minister of public safety.

Vic Toews, speaking Wednesday at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said he will do all he can to help bring about change.

“When I started prosecuting, it took police an hour to process an impaired driver. Now it’s three to four hours and sometimes more for exactly the same offence,” Toews told reporters after his talk to more than 300 chiefs of police from across Canada.

“Even in relatively small investigations, the amount of time required by police has substantially increased, and that limits the ability of the chiefs to get police out on the streets,” he said.

“The amount of paperwork that is required in order to meet demands simply is overwhelming, (and) they comply but it restricts their ability to do street investigations and get more officers on the street.

“More and more resources are dedicated to providing information to defence lawyers.”

Those defence lawyers say the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and legal interpretations of it over the last 25 years, set the parameters for disclosure of information necessary to ensure that an accused person’s right to a fair trial is upheld.

While anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent and has the right to a fair trial, Arnold said an accused also has a right to full and complete disclosure of evidence.

“Those rights were legislated in the charter and amplified in court decisions over the years,” he said.

Moreover, any information relevant to an accused’s case has to be given to the accused, and there is no way to reduce that information flow, Arnold said.

“As far as the forms police have to file, that’s an internal matter,” he said.

“This is as clear as a bell, and if they need to rejig their internal forms and streamline their processes, then they should do so.”

Toews said the federal government is committed to working with police agencies to see what changes can be made.

He said that when he was a prosecutor back in 1976, disclosure often consisted of a “half sheet of facts.”

“Now, every single piece of paper, every police involvement, has to be detailed and provided to defence counsel, and this results in thousands and thousands of pages in certain cases, especially the more complex drug and other cases,” the minister said.

Toews said he believes the Criminal Code has to be updated to create efficiencies while ensuring the requirements of the charter are met.

Asked how he would create those efficiencies, Toews brought up the thorny issue of Bill C-30, which proposes an amendment to the Criminal Code to give authorities the power to track criminal activities online without a warrant.

The bill has come under attack from all sides. Opponents fear the sweeping powers would mean invasion of privacy and restricted rights and freedoms that are supposed to be protected in a country such as Canada.

Bill C-30 has been sent back to committee for study before it is submitted for second reading in the House of Commons, but that doesn’t keep Toews from bringing it up as a case in point.

“We need to update the language of the Criminal Code, which is essentially what Bill C-30 does,” he said.

Toews came under attack in February for suggesting people had a choice to stand with the government on the bill or side with child pornographers.

“I’d like to hear what the actual legal arguments are, (because) critics say invasion of privacy, and if there is invasion of privacy I’m not interested in bringing forward unconstitutional legislation,” he said.

“The criticism of C-30 is exactly the same criticism made of wiretap legislation over 30 years ago.”

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Old Wiretap Law - warrant required. New C-30 Wiretap Law - no warrant required. No warrant, no oversight. No oversight means cops spying on their ex-wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. Or they could skim some credit card numbers and do a little on-line shopping, blackmail people or ask for bribes. All sorts of cottage industries could prop up around it. I suppose that's the point though, Vic Toews dreams of being J Edgar Hoover, spending his days looking at child porn he collected from people's computers (research you see) and blackmailing everyone to do his bidding. Only the poor (ie. powerless) people need to abide by morality and ethics. The rich and powerful are free from such concerns because they are busy building a better country for themselves and their friends.